Otros Saberes

“[The research] teams brought together a diverse group of Afro-descendant and indigenous collaborations with academics that yielded an unusually strong contribution to social justice oriented problem solving. . . . Otros Saberes proved to be a unique experiment in social collaboration. It evidenced how collaborative projects yield more meaningful results, unlike traditional research which oftentimes remains mired in preestablished Eurocentric prejudices.”
—Arturo Arias, University of California, Merced, Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, July 2017

“Otros Saberes is an avant-garde report from the frontlines of knowledge. By foregrounding the knowledge produced by some of the most innovative indigenous and Afro-descendant movements in Latin America at present, this volume demonstrates that activists and grassroots intellectuals are often more attuned today than academics to the kinds of questions that need to be urgently asked in the face of unprecedented ecological and social crisis. Not only that, the volume provides vivid first-hand accounts of the promises and tensions of collaborative methodologies bridging academic and activist worlds, furthering our grasp of the elusive goal of genuine collaboration. LASA and the project visionaries have accomplished an incredible theoretico-political feat in the best tradition of engaged scholarship.”
—Arturo Escobar, author of Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes

“Otros Saberes is an intriguing collaborative volume written in English, Spanish, and Portuguese by academic and non-academic intellectuals. It goes well beyond normative definitions of knowledge; also beyond ‘thought’ it offers food for political epistemic action.”
—Marisol de la Cadena, UC Davis

“By focusing on the processes entailed in community-centered collaborative research, Otros Saberes offers students and researchers a significant roadmap. The six Latin American collaborative projects describe how indigenous and Afro-descendant activists, cultural workers, community members, organizations, and scholars exchanged and produced knowledge.”
—Hilda Lloréns, University of Rhode Island

“Each chapter is a self-contained study that offers original and detailed insights into the research design and its results, and the result [is] a well structured and balanced set of high quality contributions. A remarkable feature of this book is its wide geographical reach. The editors and organizers have pulled together studies that complement each other and at the same challenge each other in terms of findings and trends. Students, scholars, and activists have much to learn from reading this edited volume.”
—Gabrielle Oliveira, Collaborative Anthropologies, Spring 2015